Lindesay Irvine

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Lindesay Irvine

In these deeply troubled, fractured, febrile times, why did you call the new record Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation? smileywombatIt was Grace’s choice [Grace Maxwell, his wife and musical collaborator]. Up in Helmsdale [in the Scottish Highlands], in my studio, I have an art deco radiogram speaker which has a sort of sunburst thing with that phrase written on it. For £60 on eBay – pristine! It was the BBC World Service motto.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Lindesay Irvine

When I came to the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) theatre at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in 1995, I’d been sentenced to 17 years for robbery. It was not my intention to watch a play. They were doing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I saw my brother Dino who was playing Big Chief, the Native American guy. I knew Dino from elsewhere in the jail, but not for this. I got involved. I found a fascination for Shakespeare that I really didn’t expect. I didn’t think I’d understand the language.

Nov 3, 2024 | theguardian.com | Lindesay Irvine

In 1979, I was at Dartington College of Arts in Devon. They had a season of alternative theatre each year and I was agog. It was so accessible and political and engaged in feminism and all the changes that were happening at that time. There weren’t very many female writers getting produced then. (Even now, women have only written 25% or so of the plays on stages – in a good year.) I went to Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9 with a friend.

Sep 23, 2024 | theguardian.com | Lindesay Irvine

A few months before I saw Arinzé Kene’s Misty at London’s Bush theatre in 2018 I’d spent the summer in Edinburgh where I watched a lot of confessional, one-person shows. There is a huge amount of privilege in being able to stand up as a solo performer and say, I’m going to hold your attention for an hour and just tell you my story. These shows seemed to be the preserve of middle-class white people, with some fairly strict rules about what makes a good one.

Nov 8, 2023 | theguardian.com | Lindesay Irvine

In October 2021, Trevor Powers went for a routine medical checkup, and after complaining of a minor stomach ache, was prescribed an over-the-counter heartburn medicine. “There’s no words to even describe the intensity of what it did to my body,” he says today. “It turned my digestive system into this mini volcano.